I sat to mix glue for a canvas in a quiet apartment. The morning sun was warm and my sleep that night had been dreamless. Lately I’ve been more aware of dreams after I had awakened Ana a few weeks prior during my frequent night terror. It was more than terror though; it was pure fear, that’s how it registered with Ana anyway. I don’t recall the dream but I do recall the terror and the look in her sparkling eyes. Those projecting eyes. I sat now alone feeling the closeness of these walls, searching for some direction even though I knew already the canvas would become transformed letter forms so I could feel the labor and code of them without a clear meaning save for it’s symbolic dribbling. That would be enough, almost like the moments of lucidity before the Alzheimer’s erases a history. Here in this quiet room waiting for a heavy abacus.
What I permit myself mostly is a fighting event. It seeks and almost necessitates a limit, then a fight. This is how it goes. So without thinking I move to take out Ana and the boy. “I like you” she says, but as she does (and I’m pleased at this) I think to the restless night before. Ana up to take care of the boy then back into a cold bed for lack of warmth and a decisive mood. This and the insufferable reality that maybe I’m just reading all responses wrong, something like double vision. When presented back with a similar question, “what do you like about me?” I go blank. I recall a love and energy but what I like is like asking heaven to point out the favored ones on a battlefield. My response was just a present-ness though I was on the spot again preferring to let it conjure itself up. I like your smile and all of our talks. I like the way you think. I like the openness we share. I was also aware that this was just a thought, that I remained silent and my distance was once again related to myself. My stupid self again. So I let it go.
Reaching for some measure of assurance I recall a line from psalm 85 "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Lines from these psalms just float up from beneath a whale and surface into the atmosphere, programmed internally from youth to direct the safety of daydreaming. Lately I’m less angry about them. Maybe it’s because Buttercup died and left me with two last thoughts. One was these words, “I’ll get your package to you soon” though the parcel has not arrived nor do I believe there is one for this life. And two, that death, for those who have constructed my long challenged spiritual bed, is not finality. For now.
